Bronx News Roundup, April 27

Yesterday, President Obama met with the Yankees at the White House, where he singled out a few of them for their community service and charity work.

A Yonkers man who gave police a DNA sample after a drink-driving incident last year has been charged with the long-ago murders of three women, two of whom were from the Bronx.  (Just last month, following another DNA breakthrough, a serial killer already serving time was charged with the 1981 murder of a Bronx woman.) 

On Saturday, a not entirely successful soda buyback event was held at Richard R. Green Middle School in the north Bronx, in support of the proposed "soda tax."  (Earlier this month, Dr. Steven Safyer, president of Montefiore Medical Center, made an impassioned plea for the tax's implementation. Supermarkets and beverage companies, meanwhile, are fighting against it - they claim it would unfairly burden low-income families.) 

BronxWorks (formerly the Citizens Advice Bureau) is holding its annual fundraiser at the Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Bill Aguado, a long-time BronxWorks board member and the former executive director of the Bronx Council on the Arts, is among the honorees.

Speaking of the Bronx Council on the Arts, the group is looking to move to Westchester Square from their current location in Morris Park.

State Senator Marty Golden (R-Brooklyn) has been talking to his Democrat and Republican colleagues about a possible resolution which could strip the scandal-hit Pedro Espada of his majority leader post.

With Espada in trouble, will Community Board 6 still get the $58,000 in discretionary money he's promised them?  (Espada announced the allocation at last month's board meeting.  He also presented ceremonial  checks to Tanima Productions, which runs after-school programs, and Tremont United Methodist Church.)

Marc Sternberg, the former principal of Bronx Lab, a high school on the Evander Childs campus, has landed a high-up job at the Department of Education where he'll be in charge of designing, selecting, and placing new schools.  (Sternberg, by the way, is a huge fan of mayoral control.)

On Thursday night, a community meeting is being held in Mott Haven to help address gun violence in the Bronx. 

A 75-year-old Morrisania man has been missing since last Tuesday. Vincent Durso suffers from early-stage dementia.

Pompeii Lounge, a nightclub on East Tremont Avenue, is a terrible neighbor, say local residents who tell stories of noisy revelers, brawls, and gun fights.
 
Recently, scores of middle school students at Riverdale Country School attempted to survive without their cell phones for two whole days.

Coqui Mexicano, a restaurant in Melrose, is in danger of losing its lease.  Local residents and community groups are doing their upmost to make sure this doesn't happen.  [via BoogieDowner]

Mo Gridder’s famous BBQ trailer is for sale.

Bronx News Roundup, May 26

President Obama has nominated Sonia Sotomayor, a Bronx-born federal appeals judge, to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, 54, who's of Puerto Rican heritage, grew in Bronxdale Houses in the south east Bronx, attended Cardinal Spellman High School, and went on to Princeton and Yale. If confirmed by the Senate, she'll be the first Hispanic justice.

Here's Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr.'s statement on her selection:

It is with great joy that the whole borough of The Bronx received the news of President Obama’s nomination of one of our own, Judge Sonia Sotomayor, to the Supreme Court. Over the last 30 years, Judge Sotomayor has proven herself to be an accomplished attorney and an excellent jurist who is dedicated to the rule of law and our constitutional values. A patriot of the highest order, Judge Sotomayor has worked tirelessly with the utmost of integrity to serve our country.
If confirmed as the next Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Sotomayor will bring a legal and human perspective that will improve the Supreme Court for years to come.

More here on Sotomayor's humble beginnings and her career-to-date.

Clinton High School's boys and girls won the PSAL Bronx outdoor track and field titles on Sunday.

For Buddy Stein, the former editor of The Riverdale Press, last Wednesday's attempted bombings in Riverdale bought back some unpleasent memories: the firebombing of the Press' offices in 1989. Here's a Press editoral, published back in February on the 20th anniversary of the attack.

Marc Sternberg, the principal of Bronx Lab High school, a high school on the Evander Childs campus, writes in the Daily News that mayoral control saved his "dying school." We've linked to this before, but here's a very different take on mayoral control from Vincent Wojsnis, a teacher at MS 399 on East 184th Street.

Because of the fiscal crisis, Soundview Park's planned renovation won't be as extensive as the city originally intended.